I watched the tutorial boss closely.
He was literally broken and motionless. It's not a living, breathing person, but a golem powered by elaborate magic.
The question was why was he broken?
Upon closer inspection, I realized why.
‘It's old. You can't tell from a distance, but it's cracked and corroded in places.’
The armor was riddled with cracks, and was barely holding together.
It looked as if it had been left here for a long time…hundreds of years, at least.
"......."
I glanced over at the tutorial boss with a hardened expression.
Part of me was glad I hadn't gotten into a fight, but another part of me was worried that the elevator to the chamber behind him wouldn't work.I walked past the tutorial boss, opened the door, and stepped inside to see an altar.
The centerpiece of the altar was a stone tablet, which was covered in dust.
It looked like it had been left unattended for quite some time.
I stood on it casually.
My footing gave way, and the massive slab I was on began to vibrate and rise upward.
Thank goodness.
This thing works.
‘If this elevator doesn't work, I'm really out of luck.’
I thought to myself as I stood on the slab that began to rise upward.
In the game, as you ascend the slab elevator, you get your first glimpse of the outside world.
A beautiful view of a vast fantasy world bathed in sunlight.
Green fields, forests as far as the eye can see, and mountains of pure white peaks stretching even further.
A world of mystery, where mystical beasts never seen in the real world soar through the skies and the sounds of grasshoppers fill the air.
Beyond healing the battered spirit, the emotion washes over me like a tidal wave, soaking my heart.
The sight of the unknown and romance was a privilege reserved only for those who succeeded in challenging the tutorial boss in the dark, dank underground temple.
Once you get a taste of it, you forget about the initial struggle and you think, "Wow. I'm so glad I started this game."
It's a sign that you've taken your first step into this world, that you've taken a challenge and you've succeeded.
It's an experience I'll never forget, and it's what got me into the game in the first place.
The excitement I feel now is a result of that experience.
The world was beautifully realized in the game's graphics, but how much more so now that it was real.
‘Soon.’
Any moment now, the stone gates would open above me and light would pour in.
And I will be able to feel that thrill all over again.
That's what I thought.
-Ding!
Until the elevator came to an abrupt stop.
‘What the hell.’
I checked to see if the elevator had suddenly broken down, but it hadn't.
It wasn't broken, but the reason it stopped was simple.
There was no way to go up any further.
I reached my hand overhead and I could feel the hard rock under my fingertips.
‘The stone gate won't open?’
The stone doors, which should have opened automatically as I ascended to the surface, were motionless.
The elevator was working fine, but the stone gate was broken!
So, to summarize the situation, I was now stuck between the closed door and the elevator, unable to do anything about it.
Now I was faced with a new problem as the oxygen in the air around me was starting to get thinner.
"Wait," I thought, "am I going to be stuck here?”
I panicked, realizing that I might die without being able to do anything.
"Open the door!"
I clenched my fist and pounded on the stone door.
*
Ta-ta-tang!
A loud gunshot echoed through the dark alleyway.
Two groups of people were facing each other, fighting.
Only one side was shooting at the other. It was a gang of men, all of whom looked tough and had tattoos on one forearm.
Fighting back against them were workers who had barricaded themselves in a large factory.
The situation was going in the gang's favor because they had more numbers and their weapons were much better.
"Yikes!"
"Those crazy gangsters! There are too many of them!"
"Stop them! If we lose this place, it's over!"
The workers barricaded themselves in with all sorts of debris, but they were no match for the gangsters, who were all armed with guns.
As time went on, one by one, the wounded were struck by blind bullets.
"You fucking bastards, you've got to be kidding me. You're hiring gangs?"
At first, it was nothing.
One of the workers was badly injured in a freak accident while working in the factory, and the owner kicked him out without paying him a cent.
Outraged, the workers went on strike and occupied the factory, shutting down the steam machinery.
But there was a problem.
Instead of negotiating, the employer hired gangs to attack in the middle of the night.
The raid was so sudden that the workers desperately resisted, but they were helpless.
"Kill them all! The employer needs an example!"
The leader of the gang glared at the barricade and gave the order.
They were being paid to kill people, but they didn't care.
Killing people for money was commonplace in this city, after all.
No one would hold them accountable for what happened here, because there were no yards (police) to show up in these backwater neighborhoods.
Knowing this, the gangs could shoot with impunity but the resistance from the workers was not what they expected.
They knew that if they were pushed out, it would be the end of them.
They were barely making ends meet, so even if they escaped, they would starve to death.
Workers with families had no choice but to endure desperately.
"Push! Kill them all!"
"Hold on! If we lose, our families will die on the street!"
The confrontation between those desperate to hold on and those trying to push through was about to reach its climax.
-Thud! Thud!
An earth-shattering sound came from somewhere.
It sounded like a drum beating or a bomb exploding but there was no one in the chaos who didn't hear it.
"What is it?"
"Is it an earthquake?"
The gunfire stopped and there was a lull in the fighting.
Everyone was dumbfounded, the gunmen and the workers behind the barricades.
Meanwhile, the earth-shaking sounds continued.
The cycles of the sound gradually became shorter and sharper.
The epicenter of the sound is getting closer
At the same time, everyone in the room realized where the sound was coming from.
"Underground?"
The sound was coming from underground.
-Kwaaang-!!!
Immediately afterward, the ground exploded. A huge cloud of dirt flew up, and several of the gang members were thrown out and hit the ground.
The gang panicked as if a giant bomb had gone off. They thought the workers had set off a bomb.
Conversely, the workers were equally confused.
They thought the explosion was the work of the gang.
As a heavy silence descended on the center, the dust from the explosion slowly settled and they could now see the man standing in the center of the dust cloud.
"What the hell was that?"
The gang leader frowned and muttered.
The man who had suddenly emerged from the ground was dressed in a garb he didn't recognize.
"A knight?"
He wore silver armor. It was full of dirt, but it was definitely armor.
He had a sword at his waist and a shield on his back.
Even the untrained eye could see that it was the garb of a long-lost knight.
The question was, why did this strange man suddenly appear out of the ground?
"Who are you, you bastard!?"
One of the gang members shouted at gunpoint, panicking at the sudden appearance of the knight.
The black-haired knight, who had been staring at his fist, looked back at the gangster who was pointing a gun at him.
His jet-black eyes were emotionless and the moment they met those abysmal eyes, the gangster felt an uncontrollable fear.
"Die!"
-BANG!
He casually pulled the trigger and the single-action revolver spewed fire from the muzzle.
At that moment, everyone pictured the same thing in their heads.
The knight was about to fall, splattered with blood.
At that moment, the knight moved.
-Bang!
With his right hand, the knight drew the sword at his waist like a flash of lightning, and parried the flying bullet.
Of course, no one saw the bullet.
It was dark, but the knight's sword was too fast.
All they could see was a single spark in the air and the severed bullet clattered to the ground.
*
I calmly collected my thoughts, relieved to be alive in the cool air outside.
Something's wrong.
My fists were clenched.
In a desperate attempt to save my life, I slammed my fist against the stone door. In a normal case, my fist would have been crushed.
But instead, my fist left a mark on the stone door and cracked it.
‘How thick was the door?’
I remember the stone door being quite thick in the game.
But I smashed it with my bare hands. Judging from the flying dirt, there must have been a fair amount of dirt on top of the stone gate, and I blew it away.
‘But my hand is fine.’
I looked down at my fist and it suddenly occurred to me.
My character in the game was a wandering knight on the 99th playthrough.
The game resets your equipment and money each time you play, but there's one thing that stays the same, your character's status.
As the monsters get stronger over time, the playable characters inherit the stats from the previous rounds as well.
Of course, I reached level 99 and had no stats to raise further as a wandering knight.
Of course, that doesn't mean you can't get a lot of stats in the game. The bosses were just as strong, and the game was so difficult that I died often.
'But what if I came in at level 99.’
What level of physical ability am I at right now?
"You, what are you, you asshole!"
Just then, someone shouted at me.
I turned around to see a despicable-looking human being, who looked like a weasel, pointing a gun at me.
......Wait. A gun?
My eyes widened.
This game is a medieval fantasy open-world RPG.
Yeah. It says "medieval.” And of course, there were no guns in the Middle Ages.
"No," I thought, "there's something wrong with the buildings around here.”
In the beginning, it was supposed to be nature itself, untouched by any development but now there are buildings and even a big factory on one side.
Even though there's no smoke coming out of the chimney, if you have common sense, you know that's a factory.
It's like the setting is not medieval, but 19th century.
As I stare down the barrel of the gun thinking about this, the weasel turns pale.
Before I could figure out why, it screamed, as if in a seizure.
"Die!"
His finger pulled the trigger as my entire body tensed.
At the same time, time slowed down.
No. Time didn't slow down. More precisely, my thoughts accelerated, making it appear to run slower.
And I know about this technique.
It was [Battle Time], one of the skills of the [Wandering Knight] job.
A skill that makes time appear to slow down.
It was a skill favored by beginners, as it allowed them to analyze enemy patterns and block or evade them.
Of course, there were limits.
The slowdown lasts for less than three seconds, and it can't be used consecutively.
But now it was activated.
The muzzle of the gun spewed fire and bullets flew in slow motion.
As I watched, I spontaneously drew my sword from my waistband.
I don't know why. It was just my body's natural reaction.
I gripped my standard long sword and swung it straight at the incoming bullet.
An unwavering sword path was drawn, and the bullet was sliced through the air and scattered across the floor.
‘Holy shit. A sword cutting a bullet.’
I mutter to myself in disbelief.
"What the hell."
I looked around and dozens of pairs of eyes were staring at me in disbelief.